Location service is a service providing a positioning service to individuals and industrial users. When a user (i.e. the calling party) needs to inquire about location information of another user subscribing to a location service (i.e. the called party), a location service platform in the network acquires the location information of the mobile terminal of the called party by specific positioning technologies and provides the location information to the calling party.
The positioning technologies of a location service platform are mainly positioning technologies based on mobile communication networks or positioning technologies based on mobile terminals. When using the positioning technologies based on mobile communication networks, the location service platform may acquire the location information of the mobile terminal of the called party according to a preset corresponding relation between the identifier of a cell and its geographical location information because the identifier of a cell will be reported to the location service platform after the mobile terminal of the called party enters the cell covered by a base station. When using the positioning technologies based on mobile terminals, the mobile terminal of the called party is a mobile terminal with a satellite positioning function, and the mobile terminal of the called party uses the positioning satellite to position itself and sends the positioning information such as the longitude and latitude information to the location service platform. The location service platform acquires, according to the positioning information, the location information of the mobile terminal of the called party, such as the name of the road where the called party is located.
Currently, location information of a called party could be provided to a calling party through a short message. A first short message sent by the calling party includes the called number, and the receiver of the first short message is set as a specific number of location service by the calling party, a short message service center receives the first short message. The short message service center sends an inquiry request containing the called number to the location service platform according to the specific number of location service. The location service platform acquires the location information of the called party with the positioning technology mentioned above and sends the location information to the short message service center. The short message service center sends a second short message including the location information to the calling party. The calling party acquires the location information of the called party based on the second short message.
The process for providing the location information of the called party to the calling party through a short message mentioned above, the calling party should remember the specific number of the location service. However, the calling party is usually not familiar to the specific number of the location service and may not remember the specific number of the location service easily, it is difficult and inconvenience for users to implement the location service. Further, the calling party should enter the corresponding short message interface of his mobile terminal and performs a series of fussy processes of inputting contents of a short message, which further brings inconvenience to the users. Further, the mode that the calling party obtains the location information of the called party through a short message is tedious and not friendly enough and decreases the service experience for the users.